Swierczynski’s Cable series has, for the most part, provided a fitting epilogue to Messiah Complex, explaining what Cable did next with the Messiah Baby and what became of Bishop in his attempt to track him down. With issue #6, the series takes a one-issue breather - if you can use the term “breather” given the remarkably slow pace of the series - to flash back to the present and give us  Cyclops’ interpretation of events.

Cyclops, understandably, is a little worried that he hasn’t heard from Cable, reasoning that time-travel should’ve made the “all clear” message come back almost instantly. He’s now racked with the kind of self-doubt we’ve come to accept from Scott Summers. The issue brilliantly reconciles the new, “murder-our-enemies” Cyclops with the old, “what-if-my-glasses-fall-off” Cyclops as he struggles to present a confident aura even to Emma despite his inner turmoil.

Cyclops is a good choice for the supporting cast of a Cable book, as despite the Cyclops/Cable connection being well-established, very little has been done with the relationship between him and Nathan over the years. Likewise, the Messiah Baby parallels the time Cyclops was forced to give the baby Nathan up to the Askani, so it’s fair that he should reflect on whether the decision was correct once again.

Unfortunately - the title of the book isn’t Cyclops - it’s Cable. This is a fine issue of Uncanny X-Men, but as a Cable issue it shoots itself in the foot by being the best in the series by a fairly wide margin despite reducing the title character to a peripheral role. With the epilogue to Messiah Complex now truly complete, it accidentally becomes a perfect jumping-off point. The ongoing mystery of the baby’s identity is receiving only a little attention, and there are few other plot threads to follow - the only major questions besides that are whether Cable will ever fix his time machine (er, yeah) and whether Bishop will catch up with him (definitely). It’s not much to hang a book off.

Lacombe’s guest art certainly improves the tone of the Cyclops scenes, though it’s almost impossible to imagine anyone other than Olivetti taking care of the art for Cable on a regular basis, so perfect is his blend of detailed and gritty, yet ethereal artwork. Cable is by no means a poor title, but I can’t help feeling that now that the Messiah Complex boost has worn off, Swierczynski has failed to find a hook to keep readers interested beyond that.

Tags: Ariel Olivetti, Cable, Duane Swierczynski, Michael Lacombe, X-Men
Publisher: Marvel